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HEILY ZEE, THE QUEEN OF PARIS FASHION WEEK

HEILY ZEE

FASHION

HEILY ZEE, THE QUEEN OF PARIS FASHION WEEK

Text: Tatiana Stolyarova

Photo credit:  Heily Zee

16/11/22

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Text: Tatiana Stolyarova

Photo credit:  Heily Zee

16/11/22

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If you ask me, who rocked up to the latest Paris Fashion Week, with no doubts I will answer: that was Alizée, aka Heily Zee!
Forget about Ye and all his easy hype build on ‘beaucoup de bruit pour rien’ as French say (‘lot of noise for nothing’).
The real Queen of fashion was elsewhere, and she shaked the Capital the way the legends used to do before La Mode has become ‘just business’.
I met her at Anrealage show, incredible one I must say. Her eccentric outfit blew my mind: it was the boldest fantasy embodiment in one super feminine, vibrant, daring and eye-catching look. Total fuchsia, with a kind of golden crown made of sun rays and flowers. Sun Queen of Nature. The girl behind the appearance was unexpectedly kind, smiling and friendly, not the usual ice-cold characters frozen behind their masks of “dazzle for an hour” (sorry, folks, i know, superficial is a part of a game).
Then followed some strong street style moments at big shows, where this young creative from Belgium, graduated fashion designer, stole all photographers’ focus by the looks which seemed to compete against each other in the originality and elaboration of every detail.
This fantastic alien makes us believe that fashion STILL can be arty and crazy. And human too. She will go far this little one, trust me. Because we need to believe like never before in a power of imagination.

Heily, can you tell us how your creative journey started?

It actually started when I was really, really young. I think that I always needed to be different. May be, because I was born in a very big family with stepmother, stepsisters, stepbrothers.., so it was a big, big mess and I think that I always needed to show that I was existing. And also, when I was young once my mom put cloths on me, ten minutes after I wanted to change it and to wear a carnival costumes or a staff like that which we used to keep in the attic.

the creative journey

My step-family is Congolese and there is one of my aunts who inspires me with her way to be: she is very tall, self-confident, beautiful and when she enters the room people are like: wow! This is a woman who knows what she wants, very inspiring.

I should also mention that my family is artistic but more like playing by society rules. My dad was a doctor, he really loved his job; but in his spare time he loved to create naked women sculptures, that was probably his way to pay tribute to a Woman. Regarding my mother, she is an assistant at the reception desk, but in her free time she loves painting naked women. So, I believe that my creativity is coming from that side too.

step-family

I always loved colours. I am a real girl, you know, so I liked everything that shines, everything that is colourful: rhinestones, glitters.

At the same time I have been interested in arts since ever. At school I chose ‘art’ as a study option and I loved it. After that I did one year of architecture. Which I stopped. I could not yet express myself so much with an architecture, so it was not for me. But it was something that architecture taught me and is still teaching me: you have to know how to associate all the shapes together. You also play with the emptiness and fulness. All those things taught me to be the person that I am now.

After the architecture I studied fashion design. There I could finally express myself in my art and I really loved it. After graduation I did an internship at Iris van Herpen in Amsterdam, the creator who worked with 3D printed dresses. She was actually the first person who used 3D elements in her collections. And it was my dream came true to work with her.

real girl
real girl-2

You have become a star of all street style of the past Fashion week in Paris, where did you get the ideas for all these incredible looks?

I would say that all the biggest queens of this world inspire me. For example, artists like Beyoncé or historic characters like Cleopatra. Women like that, so powerful, so big, so crazy, that it can be a bit scary. You feel so small when you see those kind of women. The women who fight to become what they became. In my looks I want to show the power of woman, the power of femininity, the power of warrior.

It also depends on what I find. For example, as off the teddy bear look, the one I was wearing when we met, that look was not the one I had in my mind at the beginning. The idea came from the jacket covered with teddy bears which I found, and I was like: oh, that should be great to make like a total look and to play with it! To put bears everywhere, a little bit like Jeremy Scott who loves to do such things. For me fashion is power, femininity, but it has to be fun. We have to mix these elements and to create something crazy.

the biggest queens

I am also inspired by Hans Ruedi Giger, the artist who worked for “Alien” movies. What I love is that he brings people into completely different universe. His paintings which he made long time ago still look futuristic. It’s so avant-garde and I love that! There is also allot of femininity in it. And I love the repetition of all the shapes in his paintings. I find it really inspiring.

Iris van Herpen is a big inspiration as well. I found that they have something in common with Hans Giger, like all the repetitive shapes and it’s very organic. We can see that Iris finds her ideas in the nature. For me the nature is the best answer for making perfect art. When I was studying architecture we talked about the “golden ratio”, a number which you can find everywhere in the universe. The universe has perfect shapes of all objects which it contains if you look closer.

Iris van Herpen

I would say that I am really inspired by the nature. For example, you see a leaf of a tree, and you examine it from far and see how beautiful it is. And then you come closer and see all the veins and everything, and it’s amazing. I realise that the nature is full of astonishing details, that’s really interesting. And that’s what I want to create in my outfits. l like to wear something that, when you see it from far you are like: oh, its quite cool! And then you come closer to me and discover all the details, because I think about everything, I want everything to be perfectly related. For me it’s really important.

I also admire the work of such Art-Nouveau artists as Alfred Mucha who is drawing his inspiration from the vegetation.

I love to go to museums, to exhibitions, to festivals, I love to dance. I actually find my inspiration in everything I love and, as I love lot of things, everything is inspiring for me!

You are not just an influencer, but also a designer of your own fashion label. Tell us about Heily Zee brand, what’s its consept and who are your clients?

Yes, I am a designer and I created my own fashion brand. My customers, I would say are my subscribers: they are following my life, what I am doing and they love who I am and, I think that they want to support me in a certain way and also they love my work, my drawings.

The line I created which you can find on my web site is a t-short line that exists in two colours, white and black. I created the sketch in front of the t-short and on back its written “by Heily Zee”. These t-shorts worked really well, but now, I must admit that I am a bit tired of it because you know, I was studying fashion design, I want to create more crazy outfits than t-shorts with drawings. The problem is that it’s really expensive and it’s pretty difficult to do in addition to all things that I’m doing at this moment. So, for now I am still selling these t-shorts but more like a merch. May be later, when I become more powerful and known I will create something else.

influencer

You have a YouTube channel which you created to support your brand’s development. But at the same time YouTube channel needs to get promotion as well. What’s your « secret » of making viral content and make a YouTube channel work for you?

I created my YouTube channel because I realised that I had no contacts in fashion and it would be really difficult for me to get inside this industry and do business. So, when I finished my internship at Iris van Herpen and I decided that it was the last time when I was working for someone for free. I needed to be payed for what I was doing. Thus, I was looking for a job in fashion but I could not find anything which suits me. So, while I was waiting to find something, I created my YouTube channel. Why? Because when I worked at Iris van Herpen I understood that this designer became so famous thanks to the technologies which she uses allot. I followed this path, and my Youtube channel was born. At that moment beauty tutorials were growing fast, so I stared to make beauty-content videos.

I would say that it grew pretty fast at the beginning. But you should understand how it works as YouTube is quite complicated with all its algorithms and other things. At the end of the day, it was neither fashion content videos, nor the videos where I am bleaching my eyebrows which helped me to grow on Youtube. The videos that worked best were where I was talking about my father who passed away from cancer – nothing related to fashion. I believe that people in social media like when you speak about your life. At that time I felt so bad that I really needed to share, to express myself, to explain what I was passing through..It was exceptional as in general I don’t like to talk about my private life.

After that I continued to produce lifestyle content (like bleaching my hair, bleaching my eyebrows, shaving my eyebrows, colouring my hair, etc.), and it worked very well. I used to invite my mother sometimes to make video together, ‘cause I realised that people really like to see your family, your universe.

So, I was mixing fashion with lifestyle. I was making fashion weeks revues as well where I was talking about the top and the flop of the fashion week, what I liked, what I did not.

 

During the COVID I started to make videos where I was creating cloths and it worked well. I was so happy as it was basically the first time I was talking about fashion on my YouTube, it was cool.

So if you want to launch your YouTube channel now, I would say: don’t do it. Because Youtube has started to fall down. However, there are many other platforms like TikTok or Instagram where you can express yourself. I would advise to try different topics, different styles, different things and you will see what’s of that gonna work. But at the same time you should stay focused on what you like most, that’s the most important.

fashion

Do you believe that fashion is a part of art or rather an industry which follows certain rules and leave less space for creativity?

I would say that there is less and less creativity in fashion. And honestly, I really miss the time when Thierry Mugler was making Fashion; when Jean Paul Gaultier was creating his collections, all those designers of 80s. There were so many crazy and extremely successful artists. That was Art. For me fashion today is rather business than art. It’s just business. To be very honest, I would say that when I go to the fashion weeks I see people who are not there to watch the catwalk, they come to show themselves, you know. And I find it quite sad because it’s not supposed to be like that. For example, I remember asking people before the show what was the show they were going to watch, and they did not know. They just wanted to get inside.

I am a kind of person who is very passionate about fashion, I love to speak about the collections, the looks, the artistic side of creations. But now, I find that many looks are pretty the same, the creativity is missing, it’s not there any more.

I think that the fashion houses prefer to make the show at the expense of the original cloths and art.

Thierry Mugler, for example, was creating a mood, even the way models were walking, it was like dancing. And the cloths itself, it was elaborated with so many incredible details.

I don’t get why we have to release so many collections per year, it’s just business. I would prefer the fashion houses to take their time and create something really crazy, artistic than produce more and more the same cloths. It’s sad, but it’s like that. It’s life)

fashion

At Paris fashion weeks people come to see but also to be seen! You are the best to attract the attention of everybody: what’s the purpose? Would you use this popularity to pass a message to people?

There are different reasons for me to come to fashion week. There is not really any message behind, it’s more about the fact that I wanna show that I exist. I wanna connect with people who could help me in my work. I would love to work with the brands, to design cloths, to become an artistic director, for example. And also, my big goal is to become a future fashion reference, an influencer. I am an influencer but I want to be biggest one)

At fashion week people ‘show more’, and me, I would show even more – that’s why my looks are so expressive, eccentric.

Probably the message, if there is one, would be about the fact that fashion has become a business now. I want to show that we can still be an artist in fashion.

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